The Nightmare Before The Nightmare
by CurlyFryGurl
Summary: Chapter 3 is up! Jack Skellington, Pumpkin King of Halloweentown, owner of Zero, and friends with Sally. But is there more to him? Or more that happened before the Nightmare Before Christmas?
1. This is Halloween

Disclaimer: I do not own the Nightmare Before Christmas, Tim Burton does. I don't own any characters either. Though I do own the plot of this particular story.

Warning: This is my first fanfiction, so please be nice about it. Feel free to R&R this story after you read it.

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Chapter 1 : This is Halloween

Eight Years before the Movie

Halloweentown was buzzing around busily, especially in the town square, with each monstor, ghoul, or corpse doing their share of work. Halloween was a week away and everyone in the square were hanging decorations, practicing scaring people, or preparing for the Halloween feast taken place after the ceremony. The jack-o-lanterns had been carved a week earlier and were all set up around town, all one hundred a fifty of them, along with the twenty severed heads. Each jack-o-lantern had a different expression, but each induced fear, delight, or a sense of awe as they lit up. These decorations were brilliant to look at.

All the citizens of Halloweentown were excited and thrilled about their upcoming holiday, save three people.The mayor of Halloweentown was one of them. As the elected official it was his job to take each Halloween decoration accounted for and to make the plans especially frightful, horrible, and not mention scary. It was also his job to supervise people and hand out jobs to everyone, but some people got more than others and were wiped out. All this stress was keeping the mayor's head from turning. Instead of being the jolly, happy mayor most people knew, he went around town with a ghostly white face with a look of panic plastered on. There were so many things left undone for All Hollows Eve, the potions still needed to be brewed, but the witches that normally brewed were busy with the feast for Halloween. This meant that only he himself could do it, or Dr. Finklestein, Halloweentown's best and only mad scientist.

Mayor quickly scurried up to Dr. Finklestein's mansion, "Oh great... another Halloween could be cancelled because of this." he murmured, "And I'd be out of a job."

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The second citizen of Halloweentown that was not excited was Dr. Finklestein himself, he had been busy preparing several difficult tasks that the mayor had just handed off to him. He had been in the middle of creating a companion for himself, but he was now stalled and would be for quite some time. His first task was to create holographic ghosts and ghouls, since all the ghost residents of Halloweentown had passed on.

All ghosts did this, they would stay for several years or more before they went on to the great beyond or were reincarnated. Monsters, werewolves, witches, and other Halloween creatures did not do this since they were all born here or banished here. Ghosts are different. They were born as humans or animals in the mortal world and when they died, their ghost came to Halloweentown. This year, however, most of them had left and not even a handful of ghosts were present.

Luckily for Dr. F, he had already completed this task. Unfortunately, he still had two more to go. One was the exploding brains that would be set off during the celebration and the other were walking limbs that had no body or head or anything like that.

While working on the brains, Dr. Finklestein heard his doorbell. He groaned angrily and wheeled himself away from his work. Because the doctor was old and decrepit, he was confined to a wheelchair and it took him longer than the average person to reach the door. The doorbell rang again.

"I'm coming!" he shouted, throwing the door open and revealing a desperate looking mayor.

Everytime the mayor came to Finklestein's, it was either to give him more work or to see if anything was done. The doctor prayed that it was only a check-up.

"Yes mayor?" he croaked, letting the disgruntled man in. "There must be a good reason why you're here disturbing my work, right?"

The mayor's eyes darted around the room, "Well... uhh... yes... yes there is. I'm sorry to bother you Dr. Finklestein, but-but... I need you to make the special holiday brew and-"

"That's the witches' job, not mine!" The doctor snapped, "I'm sorry mayor, but I'm too tied up right now to do such a thing. I still have to finish those brains and then work on the limbs. It's a complecated thing mayor. Why not ask someone else?"

The mayor was now frantic, "Because! You and the witches' are the only ones capable of concocting such a thing! Please doctor! Please!"

The doctor shook his head, "Once again, I'm sorry mayor. Why not ask that Skellington boy who lives up in the old castle?"

"Skellington? He hasn't come out in years! What makes you think he can do it?!" mayor exclaimed, surprised and shocked at Finklestein's answer.

"What makes you think he can't?" Finklestein asked, wheeling back into his lab, "Besides mayor, he's one scary guy. Maybe he could help you out with Halloween preparations."

With that, Finklestein shut the door and left the mayor to ponder if he should go up to the old castle and see if Skellington was still up there. 'I might as well...' he thought, turning around and scurrying off to the old, tall castle.

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A pair of empty eye sockets gazed down at the residents of Halloweentown running around in preparation, they all looked like little dots from the tower where a figure stood. This figure was tall, taller than the average human or creature. Why, the figure had such long legs... he could bend them with ease and leap up quite high. Not only was he insanely tall, he was also the skinniest thing you would ever dare to see. This was because the figure was a skeleton, but not any skeleton... Jack Skellington, the only skeleton in Halloweentown and the scariest creature out of the lot. Although no one in town knew this.

The poor lonely skeleton had retreated to his castle somewhat around three years ago, after being shunned by all. He had been given a task, a task to think of the scariest thing possible and make it occur for Halloween. Every creature was jealous of Jack and longed for that task, it was most honorable. Except that... Jack didn't want the task. He never said it aloud though, for if he did he would be banished from Halloweentown for not appreciating the frightening holiday. Jack Skellington had thought for months, finally coming up with a box that had a ghost pop out. He had found it quite amusing, but the other residents had not. They had laughed and mocked him,finally getting him to reveal his true feelings about Halloween. This caused the citizens to completely ignore Jack,causing poor Jack to isolate himself from the rest of Halloweentown, simply watching them from his tower. He practiced scaring, soon he had managed to make the spiders that crawled in his room to die of fright.

"What's so intresting about Halloween anyway?" the skeleton questioned, "Scaring people? Ghouls? Goblins? Or just plain old fear itself? Hmm... I suppose I'll never know."

He almost expected a response, but only silence greeted him. He sighed, hanging his head as he began to pace the room. Thoughts raced through his skull, he was thinking about joining them this year. Giving them a real scare no one would forget.

"That's it! I'll sneak down there on Halloween and when they least expect it... BOO! Haha, I'll scare them right out of their pants!"

With his long legs, Jack leapt from the ground the chair and the chair to the mantel. Seeing the mirror across from him he gave off a freakish grin and chuckled evilly. Suddenly a shrill scream caused him to fall over in surprise.

"What was that?" he wondered, knowing that he had heard that scream before.

It took him some time before he remembered that was the noise his doorbell made when someone rang it. 'But who would be ringing my doorbell? No one has in three years...' Regaining his composure, Jack quickly straightened his jacket and tie and proceeded to the front door.

"Hello?" he asked, as he opened the door.

"Ah! Why hello... uhh... Jack! How good to see you again." It was the mayor, a bit chubbier than he remembered... but it was the mayor all the same. He was wearing a grinning face and probably wanted something. "How have you been Jack?" he asked.

Jack was startled at this gesture of friendliness, "Well... good... I guess... as good as I can get for not leaving for three years."

"Well, there's that," the mayor chuckled, "But Jack, I was wondering if you would like to join our Halloween celebration this year? It would be horrible if you came!"

The skeleton was about to scowl when he remembered that they said horrible instead of great or fun or jolly, "I don't really know... it's been a long-"

In mid-sentence, Jack was soon interupted by a deep call from Jack's gate, "Mayor?! Mayor?!"

"Up here!" the mayor hollered back in reply.

Thundering up the stairs came a rather large sack, a potatoe sack to be more specific. It was a faded greenish-brown and walked all on it's own. It had holes for eyes and a large hole for the mouth and the tip top of his head was pointed and flopped over. The memory was a bit fuzzy, but Jack would never forget this creature of Halloween.

"Well, well, well..." the sack thunderered, getting a closer look at Jack, "What have we here? Jack Skellington... long time no see. Finally decided to join the dead, now didn't you?"

Jack remained impassive, "Hello to you too, Oogie."

"That's Mr. Oogie Boogie Man to you, Bone Man." he grinned evilly, placing his hands on his hips and turned to look at the mayor, "Mayor, I was just about to give a proposition. We all understand how hard it is for one creature to plan Halloween, so I came up with an idea."

Jack became intrested in this, though his face didn't show it. The mayor grinned wider, also intrested in what Oogie Boogie had to say.

Mayor jumped up, "Let's hear it then!"

Oogie glared at Jack, "I think this should be discussed with residents of Halloweentown only. Meaning Bone Man must retreat into his little bat cave."

"Just because I don't come out often doesn't mean I'm not a citizen of this town." the skeleton declared, "Now go on Oogie, tell the mayor your brilliant idea."

Oogie Boogie grumbled something under his breath and then proceeded, "So, mayor, I decided that there should be a chairman of Halloween. One who can assist you with all the plans and such."

The Mayor was simply giddy at this, "Of course! We would have much better Halloweens! Now.. who could be the chairman?"

"May I suggest..." the potatoe sack cleared his throat, "...that the scariest, most horrifying creature land the posistion? Such as myself, Mr. Mayor?"

Jack stepped up, "Or possibly, there could be a vote?"

"A vote? Wonderful Jack! This idea is getting better and better! Alright so Oogie Boogie is one candidate and..." the mayor stalled trying to think of someone as scary as Oogie Boogie. Then the mayor looked up at Jack and smiled, "Ah, and Jack Skellington. Thank you for volunteering!"

"WHAT?!" Oogie was enraged, "He hasn't even been around the past few years! And he didn't volunteer!"

Mayor shook his head, "Now now, everyone deserves a chance now don't they? Now I'm thinking that whichever one of you makes a scarier entrance, gets the posistion!"

Oogie Boogie didn't reply, instead he stormed back down the stairs to Jack's gate and slammed it shut. The mayor shrugged and bid farewell to Jack as he scurried after Oogie to deliver a town meeting. Jack Skellington simply stood there, a mischieveous grin plastered on his face as he thought of how he should scare the folks and gain a posistion that would make him appreciated.

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I know it was a little long, but the rest of the chapters wil be shorter! Well, a little shorter. I just wanted to give you an idea of how the citizens react to Jack and how his curiosity of Halloween may have effected his curiosty for Christmas later on. Well, R&R please.


	2. Town Meeting

Chapter 2: Town Meeting

The mayor hadn't given Jack specific details on how exactly he was supposed to scare them, all he had was whoever made the scariest entrance would land the job. This gave Jack the impression that he wasn't to be seen until the timing was right and made his entrance. The skeleton tapped his long, bony fingers on his desk, a pencil near his hand on a sheet of clean paper. He had to come up with something more horrible and gruesome than Oogie Boogie ever could.

"Hmm..." he thought aloud, cathching sight of the chair and mantle, "That's exactly what I'll do..."

The whole town, except Jack, were all gathered at the Town Hall for the meeting. All the creatures were quite curious as to what came up that would stall their preparations for Halloween. Dr. Finklestein was the last to arrive and by then everyone was quite impatient. Murmurs of 'What's going on?' and 'This better be good' were heard all around the room as the mayor stood up to the podium.

"Alright everyone! I thank you all for coming!" he grinned, "Now, there has been an idea thrust into my mind by a noble citizen, Mr. Oogie."

Few people clapped, because of the fact many did not like him because of his trickery. It wasn't as though the tricks were not allowed in Halloweentown, it was just that Oogie's trick's were more towards the citizen's than the mortals. His tricks were harmless either. Once he stuck a silver bullet into the wolfman's food and the poor canine was sick for a month. But, despite all that Oogie had done, they decided to listen to the mayor.

Mayor motioned for Oogie Boogie to stand up, then he continued. "The idea is this, a chairman of Halloween... no... a leader of Halloween... hmm, that's not right either. Ah! A King of Halloween! A Pumpkin King to take rule over the holiday whom people respect and obey and is someone very responsible."

Everyone began chatting in anticipation, loving the idea but figured that if it were Oogie Boogie's idea that there must be a catch. People began looking around, catching sight of the potatoe sack holding his floppy head up high with pride. Frowns began creasing on some forheads while others thought of having a Pumpkin King. The mayor cleared his throat, trying to get the town's attention.

"Please people! Now, there will be a vote on two candidates for the posistion! They have volunteered for the job and I shall tell you their names! The first candidate is... Oogie Boogie! Congrats."

The whole town groaned, not wanting their King to be the stuck-up, gambling, tricky Boogie man.

"And the second candidate is Jack Skellington! Congrats once more!" the mayor concluded.

The whole town was silent as the grave most of them dwelled in. Jack Skellington hadn't been seen around in three years, give or take a few days. He had disappeared after the 'jack-in-the-box' incident. Also after revealing that he disliked Halloween. Murmurs of concern, anger, and laughter echoed through the hall as the mayor happily left the room, leaving the others with their new problems. Oogie Boogie left as well, he had to think up a way to scare the pants off the creatures of Halloweentown.

"What should we do?" the clown of the tearaway face asked the harlequin devil and the wolfman.

The wolfman growled, "Well, I still am angered at that Oogie Boogie... but I'd rather have a king of Halloween that would scare us instead of making us laugh. My vote's for Oogie."

"I agree." the devil responded, as he and the clown nodded in agreement.

The lake creature was talking with the two witches, "What do you two think?"

"I don't know about you two..." the gray witch replied, "but I'm going for Oogie Boogie."

"Yeah!" the little green witch squeaked.

Outside the Town Hall, a certain Oogie Boogie man was listening to the arguments and conversations going on within the halls. He smirked slyly, 'This is perfect.' he thought, 'They'll all vote for me anyway so I don't need to worry about old bone man after all.' A coniving laugh escaped his mouth and he chuckled to himself all the way back home. 


	3. The Pumpkin King

Chapter 3: The Pumpkin King

Over the next week, everyone was hard at work trying to please the mayor for a most horrible Halloween. Also, many of them were in deep thought, they were thinking about if it was such a great idea to have a Pumpkin King after all. Both candidates were not people that the town especially liked, though most couldn't say the same for Jack since they had never met him or couldn't remember meeting him. But, Oogie Boogie was infact not well-liked, but well-known within the town and one could say they trusted him more than someone they had never met.

Back in his lab, Dr. Finklestein was hard at work finishing the brains. He didn't think the mayor would actually go to Jack Skellington's house, he had just wanted him out of his own house. Now the crazed mayor had asked the skeleton to become a candidate for Pumpkin King in a contest with Oogie Boogie. It was madness. Complete and utter madness, which was not strange for this town, but in this case it was. Finally placing the last brain in the sack, the doctor began working on the walking limbs.

There were only two days left until Halloween and everyone was busier than busy, the whole town was decorated with black and orange and bats and skulls, and bones and jack-o-lanterns. The mayor was now in a particularly good mood since the town meeting, but was still trying to rush things for the upcoming holiday that was to take place in only two days time. Some of the citizens became annoyed with the mayor, while others were relieved thathe wasn't panicky and worrying all the time. Of course, the mayor's good mood didn't stop the other people of Halloweentown from worrying about the next few days.

October 31st finally came, everyone was excited and thrilled when they first awoke. They had simply forgot all about the Pumpkin King thing, that is... until Oogie Boogie showed up around noon. The over-sized boogieman was dancing around in circles, quite pleased with what was to be the outcome of this Halloween.

"All of you must remember to bow to me!" he hollered jovially, as he approached the mayor. A groan went up from all the citizens as they went back to work and remembering the horrid ceremony for the Pumpkin King.

"What now?" asked the lake monster, her question directed towards the witches. It was five o'clock and everything was ready for the big holiday.

The short green witch shrugged, "We might as well go home and come back at 8."

Other creatures nodded in agreement and quickly set off for their own home or grave. they would return later in better moods for the horrid, freakish holiday, soon becoming unerved by the voting of the Pumpkin King.

Jack Skellington had the whole routine perfectly planned out, now he just had to decided when to put on his frightful scare. He decided that he would make his presence known after Oogie went on, maybe give a dramatic pause. He smirked at the thought, that sounded good. He'd leave the window open and listen for the mayor to announce the time for the voting and then he'd prepare. These thoughts also caused him to wonder why he'd care so much to be involved with Halloween. Was it because he wanted attention and respect from the people of Halloween? Or maybe a reason that he wanted to feel like he belonged? Suddenly getting second thoughts on the idea of going out there, Jack pushed that thought far into the back of his head.

The tall skeleton sat on the edge of his window, peering out into the center of town where it got darker and darker. When it finally struck eight o'clock, every single jack-o-lantern lit up along with all the other Halloween decorations that had been developed for this day. Jack watched with glee as all the townspeople came out, cheering and singing:

"This is Halloween! This is Halloween!  
Pumpkins scream in the dead of night!  
This is Halloween! Everybody make a scene! Trick or Treat 'til the neighbors gonna die of fright!"

Jack smirked as everyone cheered on the arrival of their holiday icon. A giant jack-o-lantern that was carted forth on wheels, pulled on by Behemoth. An explosion of brain signaled the lid of the pumpkin to be released and a flurry of disembodied limbs scurried out. Many of the citizens screamed in either fright or delight (a/n: hey a rhyme!). He shook his head, he had seen much more horrible Halloweens from his tower and this was not one of the best. Soon the feasting began and some chosen creatures had actually gone to the mortal world to scare little trick-or-treaters. Only about six creatures were chosen and this time it had been Oogie Boogie, the wolfman, Mr. Hyde, the man under the stairs, and two of the four vampires.

When the party returned, Jack knew it would be time to start the voting. He quickly readied himself and silently crawled out the window, just in time to see Oogie Boogie return with the other five. With spider-like movements, the skeleton slunk down the wall of his home and leapt up to the roof of a house. With a good view from there, Jack lay hidden and waited for his cue.

Oogie slunk into the shadows, not actually returning to the town square. Jack watched with extreme curiosity as everything got darker and darker. He could hear some squeals of question as he squinted to see in the darkness.

"What's going on?" was a question being asked by most citizens as they looked around the square that had been all lit up just a few moments ago. They heard a deep chuckle and suddenly knew what was going on. It was the voting thing, so Jack Skellington and Oogie Boogie were to make their appearences. Although they expected it, it was still thrilling. The jack-o-lanterns and skulls looked as if they were under a black light, when suddenly a deep laugh echoed through the town and something leapt out of the shadows with a black light shinning down upon him. It was Oogie Boogie of course. Just to be good sports, many of the creatures gave fake shrieks and some even real shrieks.

The mayor clapped gleefully, "Well done! Well done Oogie Boogie!" Other feigned responses were, "Great job." or "Yay for the Boogieman."

While all were clapping, no one noticed a skeletal figure slip into the murky fountain.

Oogie looked around smugly and waited for a minute before stating, "Well, that's it! Bone Man chickened out and will not be joining us! Therefore... I am your new Pumpkin King!"

On cue, a tall and lanky figure rose out of the water. People turned and gasped, unable to recognize the figure coming up from the water. The eyes of the figure were closed, but when he ceased to rise a shock came to the people. A hideous, fear inducing grin was plastered on the figure's face and he opened his eyes, brilliant light flooded out of the empty sockets. Screams of real fright echoed throught Halloweentown and only ceased when the figure removed the candles from his eyes and smiled a normal grin.

After the screaming, a roar of applouse sounded throughout everywhere. Jack looked quite pleased with himself, the mayor was also pleased. Oogie Boogie was furious, his mind was suddenly raging with fury. 'Jack wasn't supposed to come!' he thought bitterly, watching the mayor stand up to the podium.

The mayor cleared his throat and everyone grew quiet, "I think we all know who our Pumpkin King is!" In response, the town cried out, "All hail Jack Skellington! The Pumpkin King!"

Jack stood up at the front with the mayor, taking a few bows and waving couteously to the crowd. The crowd suddenly inched forward, each person trying to get a word with Jack or glimpse of him. All but Oogie Boogie, his mind raced with anger, 'Someday... someday I'll get my revenge...'. Oogie backed away from the crowd, 'But until then...' The Boogieman slunk off towards his house that was built into a tree, not to be seen for a long time. 


End file.
